Which of the following suggestions for improving
the NHL is best?
Reduce schedule to 70 games
Players without puck skate freely
Three points for regulation win
Wider blue lines, nets moved back
Serve all two minutes on power plays
Widen ice surface
Change offside rules
Reduce size of goalie equipment
Forwards can't skate backward in neutral zone
Turn down the volume

In a league where future stars appear ready to take control, the biggest question is when that future will start.

A collective bargaining agreement must be reached with players before the 2004-05 season begins. No negotiations have been held since Oct. 1, and none are scheduled, though the league hopes it can crank things up again after the All-Star break.

The last agreement was reached in 1994-95 after a lengthy lockout and was extended twice to ensure labor peace during the Olympics and the last round of expansion. While the league has grown to a $2 billion industry, salaries also have risen. The average salary was $572,000 in 1993-94 and hit $1.79 million last year. That figure passed $1 million in 1997-98.

League losses are "very substantial," Daly says.

"We're spending 76% of our revenues on player costs," he says. "That's a percentage we can't sustain even in the medium term. No business can sustain at that level."

The question is how the two sides deal with it. The NHL wants "cost certainty" — or a definable relationship between revenue and expenses. The union wants no part of a salary cap — "they know it's a complete non-starter for us," the players association's Ted Saskin says — or a luxury tax that is so steep that it acts like a hard cap.

"For over 87 years the NHL has operated in a marketplace system, and each time a collective-bargaining agreement comes up, we look at the issues that are facing the game at that time and we try to address them," says Saskin, the union's senior director of business affairs. "We're fully confident that we can address them while maintaining a marketplace system."

The NHL's only cap is on rookie salaries, though there is no limit on performance bonuses. Saskin says owners told the union they wanted revisions in the entry-level system plus a way to curb the habits of some of the league's higher-spending teams. Payrolls range from less than $25 million for Nashville and Pittsburgh to more than $75 million for the New York Rangers and Detroit.

The union proposed a baseball-style system of a luxury tax and revenue sharing. Saskin views the league's Oct. 1 proposal as a hard cap, though Daly disagrees. He says the league's numbers are based on average team payrolls while an NFL-style cap sets a maximum team payroll.

"What we're focused on is making sure that we know as a league what we'll be spending on player salary in any given year," Daly says. "What form that takes on a club-by-club basis is something we have to negotiate."

Saskin also believes there is plenty of time to work out a deal and avoid a lockout, which he says would cause "tremendous damage" to the sport. "As long as the NHL is prepared to negotiate a fair agreement with us, I'm optimistic we can get together and have discussions and hopefully make some progress," he says.

Players lost 36 games worth of pay in 1994-95. While labor issues are in the back of players' minds, they have been saving money and are trying to be professional.

"It's not a big distraction right now because we see the playoffs getting closer and we're focused on that and aren't thinking about a lockout," says All-Star winger Jarome Iginla, Calgary's union rep. "Too bad it's not as optimistic as I hoped it would be."